


As Long As You’re Mine

by JHarkness



Category: The Wicked Years Series - Gregory Maguire
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Reality, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:39:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JHarkness/pseuds/JHarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liir and Trism parted on the most uncertain of terms, and somehow they manage to find each other again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Long As You’re Mine

**Author's Note:**

> I am an avid fan of The Wicked Years, and I am aware that his daughter is named Rain and that Gregory left Liir alone. However, I wrote this before the release of Out of Oz and now silently pretend that this is really how it ended. I hope you enjoy my alternate ending, and please R&R and comment!

Liir Thropp hung his head against the chilled wind, trying his best to hurry inside to the warmth of his household. It had been raining for days upon days, and there was no end to the raging storm in sight. Oz seemed to be punishing itself—or him, he thought bitterly—for all the evil that had occurred in its bosom. Harsh droplets of freezing water barraged his face and forced him to pull his hood up as he fumbled for his keys. He heard the soft click of the metal turning and was about to push the door open when a sight to his left rooted him to the spot.

A figure clothed in thick black leather and a fading overcoat stood forlornly on the cobblestones, staring directly at the tired son of Elphaba Thropp. Liir gaped, openmouthed, back at the man. _It’s impossible,_ thought Liir, but he had seen his fair share of the impossible.

Thus, he welcomed the incoming impossibility, hoping for the best.

“Trism?” Liir whispered. Or screamed. No, a whisper it was, but in the fierce helplessness of a scream; the disparity. In one word the world seemed to stop, as it brandished true words and emotions: lost love, lost hope. Fear of losing more and the threat of being wrong.

The impossibility looked straight at Liir, and now it was undeniable. Here he was, after countless years. Liir could hardly breathe, and was certainly too stunned to even consider speaking more. So, Trism and he just stared at each other, taking in the loss and brandishing it anew. The dragon mesmerist stepped toward his old friend timidly, like the sorcerer himself was one of the fire-breathing creatures he had once tamed. Once Trism was one painful step away, Liir cleared his now sandpapery-dry throat and spoke.

“Would you like to come inside?” he managed. Trism started out of his thoughts and nodded. Apparently, he still had yet to regain his speech. So, they walked up the stairs in more silence, though their silence spoke many words for itself. Liir stood awkwardly as Trism took in his new surroundings. Neither of them paid any mind to their soaking clothing; instead, they pretended not to be looking at one another or noticing how the wet fabric clung to hard muscles underneath and begged to be shed.

Abruptly, a shrill laugh pierced the air. A green figure came running through the hall, dressed in a soft white frock. Her black hair flowed behind her until she came to a stop between the two men.

“You have a child.” Trism stated.

“Indeed,” answered Liir unnecessarily, sitting and bringing his daughter to his lap. Trism sat also, but across from Liir.

“Then you are the Wicked Witch’s son?” Trism questioned, surveying Liir’s daughter’s unusual color.

“It would seem. The gene must only be carried in females, or it skips a generation. I don’t know for sure, truly.”

“And your wife?” Trism asked.

“I have no wife.”

“Had…?”

“No. We were never married. She is dead, anyway.” Liir waved his hand in the air, pushing the thought of Candle away. That story was long over for him. He only wished that the time were not; the time when he had Trism and didn’t have to hide from the authorities.

“Oh.” Trism wrung his hands together, gulping and fidgeting as the descendants of the witch stared him down.

Then, for the fist time, the child spoke. “Who are you, sir?” She inquired.

“Good manners for a child.” Trism remarked, smiling at the lovely girl before him. Liir’s only response was a nod, so the mesmerist continued voicing all the questions he had tumbling through his mind. “How old is she?”

“I’m two!” She squeaked.

“She is usually very shy,” Liir blanched, incredulous. He let his daughter slide off his lap and take her place between them.

“Is she?”

“I am!” She had never uttered so many syllables to a complete stranger before. It seemed Trism’s talents as a dragon mesmerist worked not only on dragons and horses, but on children as well. _And men,_ Liir remembered, blushing. Trism noticed the flush of his former lover’s skin and smirked, catching the trail of his thinking. The girl simply continued her talk.

“Who are you?” She asked again, with less formality.

“I am Trism bon Cavalish, my dear lady.” Liir’s daughter giggled.

“You share my name!”

“What?” He asked, baffled.

“Your last is my middle! Elle Cavalish Thropp is me!” She giggled some more.

“Oh ho. Is it?” Trism’s blonde head turned toward Liir. If the air had been crackling from the pressure of the unsaid before, now it was crumbling under the weight. He no longer wore a smug look on his face. It was replaced by confusion and something tenderer; something Liir had thought he would never see cross the man’s face again.

“Elle, dear, why don’t you go to bed?” Liir suggested pointedly, hoping his daughter would understand. However, her curiosity got the best of her, and she protested;

“But I want to ask him more questions Daddy! He must be important to have my name!” Both men chuckled at Elle’s remark.

“Indeed.” They answered simultaneously. She smiled grandly back.

“Oh, maybe I will. I am slightly tired,” She yawned theatrically, lifting her arms and rolling her eyes at her father. Once she had excited the room, Trism’s eyes regained their sadness and began fixedly regarding Liir. The latter man wondered where the love had disappeared to. Had it crawled back into the deep confines of his heart, never to be seen again? The son of a witch hoped not. Love was of the highest importance at the moment. But what was 'love?' Those feeble four letters of false romance and hope were supposed to be something one could cling to. To say the word with two others in a sentence: ‘I love you’ was the ultimate devotion and connection.

No, it was cock-and-bull. That’s what it was.

But then why was love the only thing Liir could describe the emotion running through him as? Love, then; love was making his heart tighten and throb, and love was making his brain fuzzy. Liir was reminded of the scarecrow that had been traveling with Dorothy before he had received his brain from the wizard. All Liir could think of was Trism. And all Trism could think of was Liir. They though of the secrets they had shared the night they had destroyed the dragons. Through touch. Through moans that were stifled by rough pillows. And the moonlight. Liir still remembered it, that seeing moonlight. Trism had shut out the moon for them, and Liir remembered that exact moment as the one when he had fallen in love.

“Did you look for me?” Trism gazed steadily at Liir, whose internal banter had been unceremoniously shattered, and waited for his answer.

“Of course.” Liir answered, rather sharply. He could not fathom why the blonde would think otherwise. “I looked for a whole year before retiring my search. It was not because I had given up on you, but because Elle needed a father who looked after her, not a father who looked constantly for his love and had no luck in finding him.”

“I imagine you wouldn’t have thought to look for me in the Emerald City, where I was being tortured,” Trism snapped back, the pain of his time spent there returning vividly. A look of horror covered Liir and he choked on his retort. Trism’s words softened then, and he continued for the other man, “I know you could not risk to come there for me. I would have hated you if you had. Neither of us would have escaped, and it would have been tragically romantic and yet utterly pointless to try. I endured it because I wanted you safe, not because I wanted you found so you could rot in a prison cell for the rest of your life.” Trism abandoned his seat and knelt in front of Liir, cupping his face in his calloused hands.

“Do you love me?” He asked quietly, gently rubbing his thumb against the smooth face of his companion.

Liir responded immediately. “That depends.”

“Depends? How so? If you love me, you love me no matter the condition.” Trism smiled sadly.

“I just want to know if you still love me. If you do not, then there is no point in loving you, because I will live heartbroken forever and become but fragments of myself. There is no point in loving someone endlessly if they do not do the same.”

“You do, then.”

“Of course I do,” he stated, as if it were the simplest of things.

Trism rose, pulling Liir to his feet as he did so. They were beyond words now. All that was left was the closeness that clothes would not allow, the closeness that each fiery kiss brought on from that moment. And each soft touch, or hard one, and every noise of passion from the lovers’ lips. And then they slept, clinging to each other tightly, as if letting go would cause them to lose one another again.

Soon, they woke. It was only around two in the morning, though the time really was irrelevant; only the setting mattered. Liir sat up, and Trism followed, though he had no intention of getting up now. Trism traced his lover’s chest and danced his finger’s across Liir’s back, teasing him and taunting him. Inviting him back in.

And so Liir went.

…

 

They woke again around noon, and this time to the sound of Elle knocking on the door. Or, more appropriately, they woke to Elle ceaselessly banging on the wooden structure separating her from the tired pair.

“Daddy! Come out! You’re so lazy!”

Liir rolled over, snuggling closer to Trism. “Play with your Cat,” he mumbled sleepily.

“She’s lazy, too!”

“Then go wake _her_ up.”

“Daddy.” She pouted.

Liir dressed rather reluctantly, placating his daughter with assurances that he was going to be with her soon. He did this while casting Trism, who was pulling the blankets closer to himself, envious looks.

“You’ll have to come out soon, too.”

“I am hungry.”

“Then get up.” Liir jokingly pulled at the covers as Trism groaned about staying in bed all day.

“You could make me breakfast!” Trism exclaimed, turning his head toward Liir and grinning wickedly.

Liir smiled mischievously. “On one condition,” he said, climbing over his lover, “One more kiss.”

“A thousand more kisses for you, Liir.” Trism answered, and he gave him what he asked for.

Trism emerged some minutes later, dressed roughly in the same clothes as yesterday.

“Did Mr. Cavalish have a sleepover?” Trism and Liir both blushed.

“Yes, dear, he did. And you don’t have to call him Mr. Cavalish. We are on more familiar footing than that,” Liir told his daughter. Trism smiled.

“Then what should I call you? Daddy calls you Trism. I heard.” Both reddened further.

Liir cleared his throat. “Yes, you could call him that, or…” He blinked, surveying Trism for a minute. “You could refer to him as you do me.”

“No, no, that simply won’t do,” Elle’s brow furrowed as she thought, “It will have to be Father or something of that sort. No, you cannot have the same name…” And she sat down as if she were facing the largest dilemma of her childhood. Liir hoped that figuring out what to call Trism would be.

Liir had always wondered what it would be like for Trism to actually be his husband. So many people and Animals alike had mistaken them for a married couple, but it had never been an accurate representation of their relationship. But, as Liir stood in his kitchen and surveyed Trism playing with Elle, he realized that there was really no need to wonder.

 

…

 

And of course, if one must know, Liir did figure out exactly what ‘love’ happened to be.


End file.
